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Monday, February 13, 2012

Flavor of the Month

As a mom I feel like I am supposed to be eager to listen to my childrens discussions about their favorite topics. I am supposed to listen, make smart comments that don't include "Uh huh" "(yawn) cool" and "that's nice dear". I am supposed to engage them in conversation, eeking out those moments of connections when my children want to share something with me. Because I keep hearing that once they hit the teen years I'm going to miss these moments.

I utterly fail at this.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love me a good convo with the boys. Sometimes they say things that have my chortling until two in the morning. But take a fork and stick me in the eye when the boys go off on a tangent about something that makes me want to knock my head back and snore.

Xavier has what I call "flavor of the months". It's whatever he is completely into at the moment. He's had several and I bet you I know more about Thomas the Tank Engine, Hot Wheels, Star Wars, Indianna Jones, Bey Blades, Pokemon, Roblox, etc than the average parent. Because when Xavier gets a flavor of the month that is ALL he will talk about. The past few months it's all about Minecraft.

I'll wake up in the morning, still unable to walk coherantly, searching for clothes and Xavier is already at my door, telling me about some diamond he found in minecraft already this morning and how he plans on finding 64 more of them as soon as he gets his homework done and did you know that in Minecraft you can..... (by this time my eyes are glazing over).

Sitting down for my morning jolt of caffeine, trying to coax my brain into working, Xavier will walk by, back up two steps and start up where he left off. Did you know that in Minecraft you can build your own secret tunnels and that he made one last night but when we walked down it a zombie came after him, but zombies are slow and he had a shovel in his hand and was able to get away by making a...... (and now I'm drooling over the only clean shirt I could find).

Driving to carpool, I can hear Xavier trying to shout something to me from the back seat of the minivan while I'm trying to stop Soren and Ashe from beating on each other and listen to the news. Most mornings I adore how cavernous my van is. The whole ride there I nod my head and mutter "uh huh" and keep surrupticiously turning the radio up bit by bit as he continues without taking a breath.

I then have a little over 6 hours of a break.

Picking up from school, it's the same. During homework time he tries in vain to keep the discussion going but I have a strong anti-discussion unless it pertains to homework rule. Every five minutes when he starts a sentence I ask him if it's about homework. 95% of the time it's not and I tell him I'm not listening.

Dinner comes around and we gather as a family to talk about their day. J talks about whatever project he's working on. Ashe talks about Zelda. Soren barks. And Xavier is turning blue as he goes on about how after dinner, he's going to get on MineCraft and build a really cool roller coaster because he likes rollercoasters a lot but he's going to make one that reaches the moon and goes through caves that have zombies....

Every two minutes I remind him to eat. And don't talk with your mouth full! And by that time it's 5pm and I'm starting to chug wine.

If you are a parent who listens to every word your child says, you're a better parent than I. And while I salute you, I'm ok with not being the best parent in the world. Especially if it means I can stop hearing about the flavor of the month for a good portion of the day.

11 comments:

I am soooo with you! I sometimes worry that I am nodding and agreeing to some evil plot to overthrow the universe but I've been lucky so far. I have been known to tell my 7-year-old that I just need him to stop talking for a bit. Sometimes it works for a whole 2 or 3 minutes.

When I was 7 or 8 years old, whenever my Dad wanted peace and quite, he would invent a chore that needed to be done, then give me a riddle that if answered correctly (no hints and only one chance to answer correctly) would get me out of doing that chore. I could use any books I wanted, and a pencil and paper. I had as much time as I needed as long as I didn't ask any questions. Normally bought him two or three hours of silence from me.

ahhh, Minecraft. I have been there til the boy discovered and now covets xbox live. The girls took over his minecraft account and were trolling for boyfriends in the chat. I yanked them off there. The boy can still build and mine for diamonds when he wants though. There are a million youtube videos devoted to Minecraft and the songs about mining are like fingernails on a chalk board. Mine memorized and sang them for me over and over again.

Ah... I can't wait for the days when Spencer talks to me non-stop about things I don't understand (well, he does that now) nor care about. I'll have to get better at faking interest in things, because right now, I fail.

Oh. My. God. He sounds just like Bella. The girl talks non-stop. And I'm worse than you...I completely lose it with her after awhile.

Like the other day, it was just she and I in the minivan driving somewhere. She wouldn't stop talking and I finally said, "Do you EVER stop talking???!!!" She stopped long enough to say, "Mommy, that's rude" and then continued talking my ear off...again.

I guess we should try to enjoy this as much as we can because pretty soon they'll be teens and want nothing to do with us. Although, secretly, I'm kinda looking forward to that.

Oooooh, I've gotten the "rude" comment before too. Ouch!Yeah, I kind of feel the same with teen years. I think I might be kind of looking forward to that. Although I know fate is laughing right now and will make the teen years suuuuuuck since I typed that outloud.

I can't remember how old you said your kids are, but I have to say we've had a sudden repreive from that from DS1: age 8. I totally get what you're saying. Part of the problem I find, is that i Have no freaking idea what he's even talking about. They have lots of words but pretty sketchy descriptions. I'm sad to report, that this has been replaced by ridiculous retellings of things that happened at school. and let me tell you , nothing all that funny happens at school. It's just a lot of, "He was like this" and "then she was like that" and a bunch of sounds and strange seizure-like movements interpersed. Maybe that's your future? At least it's funny to watch them spaz around a bit;)